Apparently the pirate ship we were transporting over to was called the Quietus. Persephone showed us a hologram of it just before we went through the portal, and the thing basically looked like a huge metal sperm whale. According to a quick note from Andromeda, the ship was two miles long, with most of the space intended to be used for hauling cargo. But when the pirates took over, they had converted a large portion of it into living space, creating encampments throughout the ship.
There were supposed to be specific areas to teleport onto when you did something like this, according to Apollo. But we didn’t exactly follow that. Instead, the portal took us straight over to the bridge. Normally a big violation, but considering Persephone essentially owned this ship, and all the pirates were locked in their quarters, we weren’t really worried about it.
All the pirates, that was, save for the captain. Dare had asked that he be waiting for us to answer questions when we got there. So, he was the first thing we saw as our group came through the portal. Not only because he was the only living being there, but also because he would have attracted attention anyway. He was nine feet tall, covered with incredibly silky metallic blue fur, and had four arms. Oh, and he had more than two legs. More than four, even. The man had a total of eight furry, insect-like legs spread in an even circle all around his waist. Sort of like a spider centaur. That whole nine-foot-tall thing came from the legs being at average rest. If he had extended them fully, he would have been a fair bit bigger.
Once I’d taken in the sight of the captain waiting there, my gaze moved over the rest of the bridge. It was essentially a large, slightly rounded triangle with two levels. The half with the pointed end was lower, and seemed to be where the pilot and normal crew would work. We were on the rear upper half, where the captain and executive officers did their thing.
Speaking of the captain, he lowered himself very slightly at the sight of us. Or rather, at the sight of Apollo. His voice was surprised as he managed, “Loxias.” Then he spoke a bit more in Latin. I’d gotten better at that with all the work I put into it, enough that I could tell he was saying he didn’t know that Apollo (or Loxias) would be coming.
Without looking at the Seosten man, Dare asked, “You know this guy?”
“We had a run-in or two before,” Apollo confirmed before gesturing. “So, are you going to introduce yourself like a gentleman, or make me do it for you? Because I guarantee, you’ll like your introduction better. And say it so the Earth kids can understand.”
There was a low chuckle from the eight legged, blue-furred man. Then he dipped himself into what looked like a bow. “At your command. I am Captain Motzer. This ship is mine by right of combat, conquest, and survival. Or, it was, until…” His eyes moved over to where Persephone stood. “Until the immortal dead one showed up. And here I’m just hoping that you’ll be taking her off our hands so we can get back to doing what we do best.”
Was I hearing that Barbossa guy from Pirates of the Caribbean in his voice just because I sort of expected it, or did he really sound similar? Shaking off that thought, I looked over just as Theia piped up. “Are you related to one of your kind named Streckth?”
There was a brief pause while Motzer took in that question before giving a slight shake of his head. “Can’t say as it’s familiar, no.”
“Oh good,” the Seosten girl sighed with relief, “he was one of my friends.“
Clearly even more confused by that, the captain couldn’t help but ask, “And me knowing him would be a bad thing?”
“Uh huh,” came the response. “My mother killed all my friends. I didn’t want to have to tell you if you were his next of kin.” She paused a bit thoughtfully then, adding in a murmur, “I should probably start that sometime, it’s going to take a while.”
Clearing her throat, Dare spoke up. “Always good to have a reminder of why no one misses that evil cunt. But in the meantime, we should probably focus on why we are actually here.”
Doug, who had been standing silently out of the way, stepped over and leaned to whisper something into Theia’s ear. Whatever he said made her giggle before whispering something back to him.
“You’re a very curious group,” Motzer noted. “Which, I guess, makes you the perfect fit for our very strange little not-quite-dead girl here. In fact, which one of you is Felicity Chambers?”
I felt Avalon touch the center of my back, clearly about to whisper something. But before she could, and before anyone else could say anything, Persephone suddenly hopped over to me. Her hands found my shoulders and squeezed. “This is my honeybunny! Sorry, potential honeybunny. We’re… taking things slow and getting to know each other before we do anything else as far as any potential relationship goes.” Even if I hadn’t literally seen and heard my mother say those exact words to her, it would have been obvious she was reciting them. In fact, I wouldn’t have been at all surprised to see her reading off the back of her hand.
“Uhhhh huh.” Motzer considered. “Well, you’re here now and free to do whatever with all that. So, you’re welcome for the ride, but don’t you think it’s time that me and the boys got back to our lives with our ship?”
“You mean, the ship you obviously stole from other people?” That was Avalon, idly making that point while stepping away from the console she had been curiously looking at. “You’re pirates. I really doubt you paid for this thing. How many people do you think you killed to take it?”
Giving another bow, the pirate captain too-casually retorted, “Far be it from me to ask for morality lessons from a Heretic. That’s what your people call themselves, isn’t it? Yeah, I’ve had friends and even family that learned just how much your people value the sanctity of life.”
Dare spoke flatly while moving in front of the captain. ”We’re trying to change things. But, to do that, we need resources. Especially if…” she trailed off, glancing over to me and then back again.
“Especially,” Apollo finished for her, “if my people decide to pull the invasion card once the truce is over.”
Brightening, Theia nodded quickly. “Oooh, yeah. With a ship like this, we could evacuate a whole bunch of people and go find a new planet before they even get halfway through enslaving the rest of—”
She was interrupted as Doug touched her arm and leaned over to whisper. Blinking at that, she looked at him and asked, “Are you sure? That seems kinda dumb. I mean, do you even know how many ships—” Doug whispered again, and she finally shrugged. “Or, you know, we can use it to fight them. Somehow. Which is not at all idiotic or crazy or doomed to total and complete failure.”
“That unending optimism is exactly why we keep this girl around,” Doug announced while putting his arm around Theia’s shoulders.
“She’s not wrong,” I put in. “Err, of course, we do need to be ready to try. But it’s definitely going to be pretty bad if it comes down to that. Which is why we need every single advantage we can get. And this thing right here might not totally change anything. But it’s an advantage. It’s one more arrow in our quiver, or whatever poetic reasoning you want to use.”
Motzer was shaking his head. I could tell he really wasn’t happy about any of this talk. But there wasn’t a lot he could do about it. Persephone had taken over his ship against his entire crew, and now she was here with several Heretics and an Olympian. Through gritted teeth, he demanded, “You steal a ship from pirates, what do you think that makes you?”
Shiori, who had been quiet through all that, piped up with, “I’m pretty sure that makes us better pirates.”
Dare, however, shook her head. “What we are is representatives from the closest thing this planet has to an authority capable of interacting and dealing with interplanetary criminals. You know, like pirates. So, we’ll commandeer the ship and put it to better use.”
“And what of my crew and I, huh?” Motzer demanded. “Will you be killing us yourselves, or just marooning us down on that hell hole of a planet and letting the less ‘civilized’ members of your old groups do the dirty work for you? On the one hand, if you kill us yourselves, you can take our strengths. It would involve killing helpless prisoners, but hey, every possible advantage, isn’t that right? On the other hand, if you just strand us on that planet, you get to pretend your hands are clean.”
Apollo snorted. “Don’t be so dramatic. We’re not going to kill you. And we’re not stranding you on Earth either.”
Running a finger through her hair, Dare put in, “If nothing else, I don’t particularly want to be responsible for all the people you and your crew would kill carving out a place for yourselves down there. Believe me when I say, none of us are dumb enough to think that any of you are helpless.”
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Changing tack a bit, the captain asked, “Do you really think you have enough people who can keep this ship flying without help? Especially if you’re right and things go bad. How many people do you have who could even find their way to battle stations?”
“You’d be surprised,” Apollo replied. He didn’t point out that we had a lot of people like that who were part of Athena‘s group and could step in. There was no reason to volunteer that sort of information.
Instead, Andromeda spoke up, her voice rising from one of the nearby consoles. “I am more than capable of maintaining this vessel for the time being, and instructing others in its operation.”
“She’s a really great teacher,” Persephone excitedly informed us. “She showed me how to make a welcome us to Earth cake and it only took fourteen tries before it was good. Oh, and we have thirteen not so good cakes if anyone wants them.”
Coughing, Dare pushed the subject back. “The point is, we’re not going to kill you, or let you wander around our planet.“
Motzer tilted his head curiously. “Well, that seems to put us at an impasse, doesn’t it? I can’t really think of any other options. You’re taking our ship, so either you kill us yourselves or you send us down to the planet. Just depends on how dirty you want your hands to be.”
Persephone quickly raised her hand. “Oh, I don’t mind getting my hands dirty! I did that all the time when my Mannybear or Puriel needed help.”
A slight shudder ran through me. I really didn’t want to think about what kind of special work those two had had someone like her doing. So, I hurriedly shook my head. “That’s okay, Persephone, I don’t think we need that sort of help right now. We’ve already got something else in mind, right?”
Apollo gave a casual nod. “Yup. See, one of those Heretic groups, the one called Eden’s Garden, a bunch of their people are part of this whole rebellion. They’ve got some colonies on other worlds and moons that they’ve been setting up for a long time. Turns out, they’ve got a little jungle moon that’s totally inhabitable, but they already pulled everyone off it to help with things back here.”
Dare added, “They’ve already agreed to let us store prisoners there. So, we’ll send you to that moon and you can stay there. You’ll have food, water, anything else to survive. But you won’t be hurting other people. Unless you all turn on yourselves, and that’s up to you.”
Motzer obviously wasn’t happy. His eyes narrowed as he glared our way, clearly trying to find a way out of this. “You think that’ll be the end of it? Well, let’s get one thing straight, whatever little games you play right now, this won’t end here. You might think you’re pretty tough, but you won’t always have the advantage like this. Someday, I—”
Abruptly, before he could even finish that sentence, Theia produced a knife from her belt and casually slit her own throat. But, of course, she rebounded the damage so that it actually struck the pirate captain. Blood erupted from his throat, and his eyes got wide. He choked and gurgled, flailing a bit before collapsing to the ground. His body twitched a few times before going still.
Recoiling as Shiori did the same beside me, I felt a rush of conflicting feelings that the others obviously shared. The man had been a prisoner, a prisoner. Yet he’d also obviously done a lot of bad things. And he’d made it clear he wouldn’t have let this go. He couldn’t even pretend to play nice long enough to get out of a single meeting without starting to swear vengeance. He obviously would have been a problem in the future. And yet, killing a prisoner like that right in front of us… I was torn. I wouldn’t have done the same thing, but now that it was done, I… yeah, it was complicated.
Meanwhile, Theia looked up after stowing the knife to see everyone staring at her. “What? He was swearing eternal revenge, or whatever. You never let someone finish doing that and then just walk away. Haven’t any of you read the Overlord pamphlet Apollo passed out?”
“See?” Apollo himself cheerfully noted in a way that seemed almost artificial, like he was trying to lighten the mood after that, “Chayyiel and I knew somebody would read the pamphlet.”
Pointing at the Seosten girl, Persephone announced, “I like her. She’s efficient.”
“She’s certainly that,” Dare agreed before shaking her head. “Right, well, let’s get this body cleaned up and then take that tour of this ship.
“And we should probably find whoever his first mate was, congratulate them on their promotion, and tell them what we just told this guy.”
******
So, we took the tour to see how the ship looked. We were going to have to do a lot of work cleaning up the pirate camps spread throughout what were supposed to be the cargo bays, but that would come later, after we sent the pirates themselves to their new home.
Speaking of which, the former first mate and now captain turned out to be a rabbit-like humanoid with reddish orange fur and a very clearly cybernetic left eye. Her name was Gala, like the party. She also didn’t seem all that broken up about the death of her captain, considering she was the first mate. I wondered what kind of relationship the two of them had had.
In any case, Gala also took the news about their impending new home in stride. Something told me that she was the type of person to bide her time and wait for an opportunity to reverse her fortunes. Which was not all that far off from what Motzer had been saying, but at least she was smart enough to be quiet about it. Besides, we couldn’t just keep killing every pirate down the line every time we thought they might be planning something.
Gala also did something that the old captain hadn’t gotten around to. Namely, negotiate what supplies her people would get.
“It’s going to take time to establish ourselves on this colony enough to survive on what we can forage and hunt,” The rabbit-woman was pointing out while we all walked through the positively enormous main engine room (seriously, the place was about three hundred feet long and about three-quarters of that wide). “If you truly do not wish to be responsible for many deaths, we will need more than just the clothes on our backs.”
Dare’s voice was casual. “Don’t worry, I spent the first few years of my life as a colonist. And I’ve seen a lot more since then. I know just how bad it can be when you don’t have supplies.”
“Luckily,” Apollo noted, “most of that old colony is still intact. They’ve already got food planted, and some livestock that were being watched over by a couple guys they left behind. But now, those guys can come home and you’ll just take over. From pirates to farmers. Or whatever it is you end up becoming. Either way, there’s a story there…” He trailed off thoughtfully, clearly already getting ideas.
They went on to talk a bit more about that, but I was distracted by the big dog head that was pulling at my arm. We’d picked up Cerberus along the way on this tour, and Persephone had been hanging back with him a bit, excitedly and quietly telling the mechanical animal all about everything that happened since she landed on the planet.
“Hey buddy, yeah, I remember.” Back when we’d sent Cerberus back up here, I had promised the dog that I’d let him meet my own cybernetic animals when we visited. So, I produced Gus and Jaq, holding the mice up so the three canine heads could examine them. The little guys were nervous at first, but before long, they were clambering over the different heads, jumping back-and-forth while chittering. Pretty soon, Avalon let Porthos join in.
They were having a grand old time, and we trailed behind the adults to let them work out the specifics of this whole situation. At least, until a shout from Doug, who stood next to one of the big, completely incomprehensible pieces of machinery that filled the room.
In an instant, everyone was right there. Doug had his hand on the side of the machine, which looked basically like three big tubes filled with liquid attached to several metal accordions they kept pumping in and out. Theia stood next to him.
“Mr. Frey, what is it?” Dare asked, her voice tense. “What happened?”
In answer, the boy moved his hand to reveal a series of runes that were inscribed on the side of that bit of machinery. “Those are the same things that we used to keep the Whispers out of our heads, the spells Sulan and I found.”
The Whispers, of course, were those invisible beings who drove all those people back on the colony world where Doug’s family had lived violently crazy as soon as Doug and Sulan had accidentally released them, or whatever. The spells were found in the same ruins, and ended up being useful for keeping someone safe from the Whispers. And, I remembered, the spells didn’t keep a Seosten out of someone’s head, but did allow the person being possessed to retain control of their body as well. Someone possessed by a Seosten while wearing those spells could move their body at the same time as the Seosten did, and couldn’t just be knocked unconscious or suppressed.
“Those?” Gala had cleaned in close to look for herself. “Those things are all over the ship. They were there when we… ahhh… upgraded from our old one awhile back. Never did figure out what they meant or why they were there. But like I said, they’re all over the ship.”
“Who’d you take the ship from?” I quickly asked, with a glance to the others. Doug was still staring at the runes there on the machine as though he’d seen a ghost. “And did you leave any alive that we could maybe talk to at some point?”
Gala shrugged. “Didn’t really take the time to get a lot of names and identifications. We hit them at a refueling depot. Basically limped what was left of our old ship in and boarded the whole thing. Left the survivors there. I figure they called someone to pick them up at some point. Other than that, your guess is as good as mine.”
Andromeda spoke up from a small console attached to the side of the machine. “They have done a very thorough job of erasing all specific mention of previous owners of the ship, and any logs there might’ve been. I will continue to search through everything that remains, if you like, but that will take quite a bit of time.”
“If it helps,” Gala slyly offered, “I can tell you everything about where that fueling station was, and anything else I can remember that might help you figure out why those runes are there. You know, in exchange for just a few concessions to make the transition for the crew and me as painless as possible. Things like certain crates of sweets and alcohol that we get to take with us, or pieces of entertainment. It’s in your own best interest anyway. Makes it come off as more of a vacation so you won’t get as much pushback.”
Dare and Apollo exchanged brief glances before the latter gave a short nod and stepped away with Gala to arrange specifics.
Shiori had stepped up to look at the engraved rune by that point, head shaking. “Why do you think the same anti-Whisper spell things are here on this ship?”
Doug had an intense look on his face. “I don’t know. But I’ll tell you one thing. I really want to talk to whoever was left back on that fuel station.”
“Why don’t you ask Captain Motzer?” Persephone asked. “He might know more about the ship he was captain of.”
“Uhhh, you were paying attention when Theia killed him, right?” Shiori asked. “She didn’t exactly half-ass that job.”
“I am very thorough,” Theia agreed.
Persephone gave a quick nod. “Uh huh. He’s dead. But why should that stop you from talking to him?” Raising her hand, she pointed straight at me, even as the realization had just risen in my own head.
“You have a necromancer.”